Obaachama and Akiko-san

We finally made it to the children's great grandmother's house outside of Kokura. We took the bus there every day for 10 days to see Obaachama and Akiko-san (the children's great aunt).


Obaachama is 99 years old (at least that's what they think!) She's very small, but seems quite healthy (genki).


Each day we did the same things at at their house. We sat with Obaachama for a while, then went to the park, got sweaty hot, then came home, fanned ourselves (see photo), had watermelon, sat with Obaachama again, watched some Japanese TV (sumo wrestling was the kids' favorite-see photo!), went back to the park, got sweaty hot, came back, fanned ourselves some more, ate dinner then went back to our hotel by train, made our futons up, read and then quickly drifted off to Japanese dreamland.

We bought a ball and a butterfly net, as catching butterflies and bugs is very popular among young boys in Japan. Robert loved it so much, that at any time during each afternoon, you could see Robert running around the neighborhood chasing butterflies (see photo)!

We also got to know some of the neighborhood children, like this little girl, Ayako-chan. She loved to play with us and we loved to play with her!